Unipar Carbocloro, a soda-chlorine producer integrated with vinyl units in Brazil and Argentina, is mulling a potential expansion of its polyvinyl chlorine (PVC) production capacity.
But the expansion plan will move forward only if the infrastructure plan announced by the government advances, CEO Mauricio Russomanno said during an earnings call today.
The Brazilian government in December last year unveiled a R517bn ($103bn) investment proposition to increase the supply of infrastructure services aimed at economic growth.
Water infrastructure and basic sanitation require large amounts of chlorine for disinfection processes for sewage and industrial waste, as well as for production of PVC pipes to transport water. Unipar aims to be an important supplier for the government's infrastructure efforts.
The company's PVC production capacity at the Santo André plant is currently 300,000t/yr. In Argentina's Bahía Blanca plant, the current PVC capacity is 240,000t/yr.
Unipar is already investing R100mn for capacity expansions in its indirect subsidiary Unipar Indupa, in São Paulo state, Russomanno said. The investment will increase Unipar's installed production capacity in Brazil to 545,000t/yr of chlorine, 615,000t/yr of caustic soda, and 755,000t/yr of hydrochloric acid.
In other news, the company said its average plant utilization rates in Brazil and Argentina increased last year by 2 percentage points to 78pc, even amid two maintenance turnarounds, one in each country.
Unipar said that caustic soda and PVC prices in the international markets increased by 59pc and 94pc, respectively, last year. The main reasons were restricted offers of both materials globally and strong demand in the majority of markets.
Unipar's total 2021 net operating revenue hit R6.29bn, with PVC responsible for 62pc of the total. The figure compares to a net operating revenue of R3.86bn in the previous year, in which PVC represented 55pc of the total.
Company profit last year rose to R2bn, up from a R370mn profit in 2020.
